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St Clement, Chorlton cum Hardy - Church of England

Church picture

Photograph supplied by & Copyright of Mike Berrell.
St Clement,
St Clement's Rd,
Chorlton cum Hardy
Lancashire

Cemeteries

The church has/had a graveyard.

Church History

While St Clements is a relatively new building, the history of a parish church in Chorlton goes back a long way.

Until 1512, the people of Chorlton had to travel to St Marys, the parish church of Manchester, for their baptisms, weddings, and funerals. The prominent Barlow family then established a chapel on what is now Chorlton Green, five minutes walk from the present church. The chapel remained a centre of worship in Chorlton for more than three hundred years.

The original timber-framed chapel was in use until 1779, when a new building was constructed in brick. Although no records prove that it was built on the site of the original chapel, the fact that some 18th Century graves can be found in the graveyard, the oldest dated 1708, suggests this is likely.

In 1839, Chorlton Chapel was designated a parish church. However, by 1860, Chorlton had grown larger and more prosperous, and because the fabric of the brick building was in a poor state of repair, a new building was proposed. Lord Egerton provided land at the corner of what is now St Clements Road and Edge Lane for the new church building.

Moving the church to a new site, however, was not without opposition. Many in the parish resisted the plans. Among them was the banker William Cunliffe Brooks who had paid for the construction of the lych-gate to the old church. The gate still stands on Chorlton Green today.

After many delays, construction of the new church went ahead and the opening service was held in June 1866. The church was consecrated thirty years later.

The opposition to the new church continued and this meant that the church on Chorlton Green remained the parish church until 1940 when the endowment was finally transferred to the new church of St Clement. It was finally demolished in 1949.

Church Records

Whilst every effort has been made to record exact details of record office and library holdings you are recommended to check with them before visiting to ensure that they do hold the records and years you wish to examine. Similarly check with transcript publishers to ensure they cover the records and years you require before making a purchase.

Register Transcripts
The Lancashire Parish Register Society have published

Maps

The church is located at OS grid reference SJ812934. You can see this on maps provided by:

This site provides historical information about churches, other places of worship and cemeteries. It has no connection with the churches etc. themselves. For current information you should contact them directly.

Help required

The information provided has been obtained from a number of sources and although every effort is made to avoid errors, just a few may be present. So if there are any please let us know. [Use the link at the bottom of this page].

We do not currently have the following information, and if you can provide it then please do so:

Exact gridref?We think we have the exact location of the church. If not please select the following link and use the instructions for passing on map locations. That should enable us to determine the exact location. Use the contact link at the end of this page to send us an email, and paste in the URL you have selected. Click here to show map.

Graveyard?Have the Monumentals Inscriptions on the gravestones been transcribed and published, and by whom?

History?Have you any details about the history of the church? Old directories frequently contain such information, and if you can transcribe such information and let us have it, we can add it to this page.

Records?Who holds the records of baptisms, marriages or burials? Have any transcripts of the registers been published?

If you have any further information about the church that you think would be useful to other researchers then do get in touch.

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[Last updated: Friday, 05-Sep-2008 13:41:44 BST - Phil Stringer]